Like the title says, today is 110 days in for me, 20 more than my initial goal of 90 days. I can honestly say that things are looking up and life is improving. I’m going to try keep this short even though I could ramble on forever.
I’ll sum it up into positives, negatives and tips.
Positives
I’m so fed up with my current job and life. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing. 110 days ago I was in a rut and I didn’t care. I wasn’t worried about my future, I was content to be stuck in my sad way of life. Now, I can’t get enough trying to improve my life. If there is any superpower I’ve got, this is it (it would make a pretty sucky superhero but, whatever it works for me!).
Not only do I want to improve my life but I also have so much extra time to go about doing it. My room which was always a mess is being cleaned out, I’ve thrown away or donated so much junk that I owned. I’m starting to pursue other jobs outside of my regular work hours, my studies are starting to look up. I even started pursuing new hobbies, like I’m currently learning how to edit videos and started up a YouTube channel just for the fun of it.
Social anxiety is something I have struggled with for decades, now it barely bothers me. I’m able to hold my own in social settings without shaking like a leaf and pouring with sweat.
Also, I don’t know why this is and maybe someone can shed light on this for me, but I’m getting ridiculously fit really quickly. I went from a guy who sat on his computer day and night to a guy who sits on his computer day and night, AND cycles and exercises everyday. I was able to ride almost 23km last weekend, which might not seem like much to any professional but its a big accomplishment to me
Negatives
There are definitely negative aspects to a reboot, so I thought I would add them in here for anyone who reads and is going through them.
Like any addict cut off from his source, I got really tense, stressed out and aggressive. I went through an emotionally flat stage where nothing really seemed worth it and I just felt so depressed, like nothing mattered in a way. I was lucky to have an awesome accountability partner who helped me through it as well as this website.
Wet dreams suck, I had had maybe 2 in my life before this, now I’m a dude in my twenties and I was getting them every few weeks, sometimes sooner. In the beginning they bothered me, but they are just another occurrence for me now, and they start happening less often as you go.
I also went through a few heavy urges, like most people do on here, which is the reason I have two counter in my sig. About two weeks in I looked at P. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I was going to PMO, when I suddenly had the realization that I could just put my phone down and walk away. A week or two later in the middle of varisty exams I once again found myself going back to old habits and looking at things I shouldn’t, and I was pacing and praying when I suddenly thought “I don’t HAVE to do this”, and I switched it off and thankfully haven’t gone back. Honestly, being a gamer, Call Of Duty helped me get my mind of a lot of this haha. Whatever works IMO.
The good news is this stuff is going to fade or go away, you just have to fight through it. It worth it trust me.
Tips
There are a few things I consider vital to making it this far.
Number one I started taking it day by day, and I set myself tons of goals. Day by day means that when I woke up in the morning I aimed to make it to that night. When it was Friday and I had time on my hands I aimed to make it to Sat then Sun then Mon. Be honest its easier to say “I’ll make it to tonight” than it is to say “I’m never going to PMO again”. One has an actual goal that makes you happy when you achieve it, the other seems impossible. The goals I set where: make it through my first weekend; my first week; two weeks; 21 days (which used to be the accept amount of time to beat an addiction); 1 whole months; 2 months (which was definitely the longest I had ever been since my teens); and then finally 90 days which is the current minimum time to beat an addiction, according to my research. With each goal I got more confident and didn’t want to lose my streak.
Number two I had a great accountability partner. He’s a guy who’s been a brother to me my whole life, and when I said to him “Let’s kick this habit together” we decided if either one of us failed we would reset and start over. The beauty is, I didn’t want to let him down, and we never reset.
Number three was avoid all triggers. Being a pc guy (I work, study and entertain myself on a pc) I had to take some counter measures. It seems ever other stock photo or advert online is of an inappropriate girl. So I installed an ad blocker to keep all those sexualised adverts away from my eyes. I also hid all images on Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud and YouTube because I just couldn’t keep my streak up with all those images thrown at me. If you are on Firefox you can use Ghostery and Stylish to do this, you’ll need a bit of CSS knowledge for Stylish, I can also share my stylesheets so you don’t have to worry about CSS if anyone wants.
Conclusion
I’m still battling, and I’m sure I will be for a long time. I find my eyes still linger where they shouldn’t and many things can still get my heart racing, but its a battle that leads to an awesome life. The more you win the fight the better it gets.
This might sound like I’m being overly dramatic, but I’m not, my life has done a 180 and I will happily sing praise for a NoFap life.
It’s midnight and I’m sorry if any of this doesn’t make sense or has bad grammar, but I’m tired and I’m going to bed now haha!
For Christians
I put this at the bottom since many people might not relate. I would not have been able to get through this if it weren’t for prayer and the support and prayers from brothers and sisters. I started a prayer group on here when I joined after praying about how to go forward. People joined up and connected and shared their problems and their prayers and their advice and without them, I wouldn’t have made it. It honestly boosted me up so much and I thank God for all of them.
;